Timbuktu Institute-African Center for Peace Studies, in partnership with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, conducted a preliminary study on women and the prevention of violent extremism as part of a research-action test project confined to Bamako and surrounding areas that it aims to expand to other regions of Mali. Presented on May 23rd at 3pm in Bamako, the study highlights the difficulties that this « weak and struggling matrix » is experiencing. It highlights the extreme vulnerability of women, their commitment rarely showcased in prevention, and the need to strengthen the capacity of civil society as well as the alarming situation of women’s rights in the face of highly influential religious institutions despite women’s confidence in women in relation to the state. The latter is even acclaimed before the international partners against a background of concerns about the stabilization of the country and the role of MINUSMA. The survey was conducted by two researchers last January by Mrs. Yague Hanne and Mrs. Yousra Hamdaoui under the scientific direction of the Timbuktu Institute. Dr. Bakary Sambe, director of the institute and coordinator of the Observatory of Radicalism and Religious Conflict in Africa, returns in this interview on the broad outline of this preliminary study and gives us an analytical overview while wishing that the Naumann Foundation expands this action research in the other regions of Mali.
Sahelien.com: Your preliminary study was limited to Bamako, where the main women organizations and women leaders are located. What emerges from the women’s perception of radicalism and violent extremism?
Dr. Bakary Sambe: This study mainly alerted women’s high socio-economic vulnerability. It is a perception study that used the CAP (knowledge, attitude and practices) method to better understand how the actors themselves see and analyze the phenomena. Malian women and women’s organizations interviewed in a questionnaire and focus groups in Bamako and Senou with a significant presence of refugees believe that the two most important factors of violent extremism remain poverty (47%) and for 40% this would be unemployment. This still proves this vulnerability, which requires urgent solutions from both the State and international partners of Mali.
Sahelien.com: What role can women play against the phenomenon of violent extremism?
Dr. Bakary Sambe: You know, women have a predisposition in the fight against extremism. It is true that they are presented primarily as the first victims of violent extremism but we rarely insist on their ability to cope with this phenomenon. It should be remembered that women and women’s organizations were almost the only ones to face religious extremism when they threatened their rights in the 1990s. Men and especially politicians waited for radicalism to become a security issue in order to take it seriously. The women interviewed expose two « big flaws » in national and international anti-extremist schemes: for 63% of them civil society is not equipped enough to fully play its role against this phenomenon, they also think at 52% that women are not involved enough in preventing and fighting violent extremism. Yet different experiences show that women are able to develop forms of community resilience worthy of consideration in different strategies. It is enough that their role is better valued especially with regard to prevention among younger people.
Sahelien.com: In which institutions do women trust to effectively fight against violent extremism?
Dr. Bakary Sambe: Despite severe criticism of political institutions, women place the State at the top of the list of actors capable of fighting extremism (28%). Then comes the United Nations (13%), then ECOWAS (12.5%), MINUSMA (11.5%) and France (8.5%). It is interesting to see that they dissociate the United Nations in general as a system from MINUSMA as a stabilization mission whose presence and action divide the respondents into the study and specify the role of France with a confidence rate of 8.5% although it is an important player in the fight against terrorism in Mali and the Sahel.
Sahelien.com: In the test project, it is also about the women’s rights, a topic that divides in Mali. What does the study say?
Dr. Bakary Sambe: The situation of women’s rights as analyzed by women and Malian women’s organizations is not reassuring. Women are alarmed by the absence of « political courage » but also by a form of inertia by the international community or, in any case, by the lack of pressure on political authorities. The study points to this great paradox on the position of women in relation to the State institution. This breakthrough of the State as the best actor in the struggle against extremism in a context of a notorious decline in women’s rights is very surprising, especially since, for many women leaders, the political authorities have never been able to hold their positions against the pressing protests of religious associations against the promulgation of the famous family and the person code. In the perception of women and organizations representing them, the situation seems to persist today, following the « decisive support of the Islamic associations when the new authorities from the 2012 elections come to power ».
Boubacar SangaréTranslated by Mahaitou Ibrahim Maiga